Israel backlash

Cartoonist Sharon Murdoch should ignore the pro-Israel letters criticising her (May 14).

These friends of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are well organised in so many countries. She will have noted one letter came from New Jersey in the US.

Murdoch’s cartoon was a brilliantly satirical comment on the threatening arrogance of Netanyahu in withdrawing his ambassador from New Zealand. Israel’s PM virtually demanded an apology from our Foreign Minister, Murray McCully for co-sponsoring a resolution in the UN Security Council condemning Israel for occupying Palestinian land.

What new Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee should do is demand an apology from Netanyahu before allowing an Israeli ambassador to come back to Wellington.

And last week, Murdoch was at her graphic best with a cartoon that said more than a thousands words, though Maggie Barry and Paula Bennett would not be pleased.

Vincent Matthews, Auckland Damien Grant ‘‘Hysteria at Israel national stain’’, May 14) shows hysteria himself.

He wails that Israel needs to build houses. No problem, except they have built hundreds of thousands of them on land that everyone accepts is not theirs.

He complains about New Zealand co-sponsoring the UN resolution calling on Israel not to continue to do so, describing it as ‘‘a stain on our nation’’, yet not a single member of the UN Security Council voted against it.

He describes Israel as ‘‘a liberal democracy in a sea of tyranny, terror and hatred’’. This so-called liberal democracy has more than 6500 Palestinians locked up in its jails and has arrested 850,000 since 1967.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East to have nuclear weapons and to have invaded and attacked all its neighbouring countries, multiple times for some. In its blockade of Gaza, Israel not only shows but also encourages ‘‘tyranny, terror and hatred’’.

The world needs fresh thinking on Israel/Palestine – not the shallow hysteria Grant displays.

Doug Davidson, Whanganui As Grant writes, sympathy toward the Jewish community for the atrocities they experienced is entirely justified and warranted.

Mistreating people for whatever reason – race, culture or religion – should never be tolerated or condoned.

In the same vein, a ‘‘manifest destiny’’ or claim of ‘‘God-given’’ rights should not be an excuse to eject people from their homes, occupy their territory, terrorise their families, or torture and imprison their children.

New Zealand and the world must stand up for the oppressed.

Maren Behrend, Auckland